


Let Me Hold A Little Closer, Dear

by dannyPURO



Series: And Let Us Speak Truthfully [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Characters Trying Their Best, Courtship Negotiations, M/M, Miscommunication, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyPURO/pseuds/dannyPURO
Summary: Grantaire wakes. He can’t quite say what it was that roused him, at first--the air is quiet, the covers are warm, he doesn’t need to urinate, and the companion that he must have made his way to bed with the night before seems to be firmly asleep on his chest. He doesn’t have a headache. There are no offensive odors. Nothing is on fire. It seems an almost pleasant morning.Then he opens his eyes and is faced with a glaring beam of midmorning-golden sun in his eyes and a shock of golden curls poking out of the covers and sprawled across his own bare chest where his newfound lover’s head lays.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire
Series: And Let Us Speak Truthfully [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556956
Comments: 25
Kudos: 341





	Let Me Hold A Little Closer, Dear

**Author's Note:**

> as requested--the morning after. makes a lot more sense if you've read the first fic, but do what u want i guess have fun.

Grantaire wakes. He can’t quite say what it was that roused him, at first--the air is quiet, the covers are warm, he doesn’t need to urinate, and the companion that he must have made his way to bed with the night before seems to be firmly asleep on his chest. He doesn’t have a headache. There are no offensive odors. Nothing is on fire. It seems an almost pleasant morning.

Then he opens his eyes and is faced with a glaring beam of midmorning-golden sun in his eyes and a shock of golden curls poking out of the covers and sprawled across his own bare chest where his newfound lover’s head lays. 

Whatever calm he may have felt upon waking dissipates in an instant and takes with it the breath in his lungs. Because-

Because it’s all come rushing back to him now, all of it, but even if his memory were to have failed him, he’d know those curls anywhere and in the dark and from a half a kilometer away. He could pick that delicate hand, resting on the bedsheets beside him, out of a lineup, if there ever was a lineup composed exclusively of hands. He has drawn the curve of that ear and the freckle on the lobe, there, dozens of times; he could do so in his sleep.

Because he knows, irrefutably, who he has found his way to bed with, Lord knows how it was ever allowed.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

(He feels a little like an unfortunate fish, yanked rudely from the abyss and held aloft as he gulps for breath.)

It’s a wonder that Enjolras hasn’t woken, actually, considering the frantic pounding of Grantaire’s heart beneath his cheek and the panicked breathing that he cannot seem to control. Perhaps Enjolras is a heavy sleeper--or perhaps he is tired, or perhaps it is earlier than Grantaire had guessed, or perhaps his panic is simply not so outwardly apparant, or perhaps it’s due to some other reason that Grantaire cannot even formulate into speculation. And Grantaire is wondering this, running it and everything else over in his uselessly spinning mind, when Enjolras renders it all moot and stirs.

Grantaire stops breathing, keeps the air caught in his throat as Enjolras nestles in closer, settles himself once more, lets out a soft sound of contentment. 

His breath ruffles his hair where it falls, golden, over his face but Grantaire still cannot bear to let himself exhale. 

But Enjolras has moved, anyways, and a lock of hair has fallen aside to show the cut of his jaw, the soft skin there, and Grantaire feels something inside of himself soften, warm, and it dislodges the breath lodged in his chest. Grantaire had seen Enjolras asleep just one time before this--from across the room, mind, when Enjolras had fallen asleep at Combeferre’s desk and Grantaire had stopped by to drop something off and seen him slumped over his work, the candle burning low and ink from his misplaced pen soaking into his shirtsleeve; he has always known that he is lovely when at rest. Just-

Just, he hadn’t expected just how irresistible the desire to reach out and  _ touch  _ would be. They are already pressed together; Grantaire shouldn’t need anything more, just-

Heavens, he wants it. Wants just a bit more skin under his hand, just for an instant. 

Against his better judgement, (or any judgement at all), he reaches out a trembling hand and brushes away the curls from Enjolras’s face. Perhaps for his own comfort, perhaps for that of Enjolras. In any case-

Grantaire feels himself let that breath of air out in a rush. Because he’s-

He-

God, but he’s fucking beautiful. 

Grantaire doesn’t realize he’s left the side of his hand to linger, ever so slightly, against the side of Enjolras’s cheek until Enjolras huffs a small sigh and nuzzles into it. And then Grantaire darts it away, of course, but he knows, in an instant, that that was the error, because he still has Enjolras’s golden curls woven between his fingers, and they catch, snarling, jolting Enjolras awake and keeping Grantaire close beyond deniability when Enjolras blinks open his eyes, a wince still half-written on his face. 

Grantaire finds that he has a sudden awareness of the fact that he is completely in the nude. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, and it’s almost… diplomatic, aside from a strange shade to his tone that Grantaire cannot identify. 

“I apologize,” he chokes out, and he makes another unsuccessful attempt to free his hand. His efforts are hindered somewhat by the fact that Enjolras is still lying atop Grantaire’s other arm, so he moves to sit up, to dislodge him, but Enjolras holds fast. 

“You apologize?” Enjolras asks, and, at the very least, he reaches up to untangle their conjunction with fingers defter than Grantaire’s would ever hope to be. 

Grantaire tries to swallow, but his throat is dry. “I did not mean to wake you,” he manages. 

Enjolras frees Grantaire’s hand. Grantaire sets it down at his side but mourns the loss of contact. “I expect I would have woken anyways.” He looks about the room, squinting at the brash sunlight that lights him so well. “In any case, I believe I’ll live.”

“Good,” says Grantaire, before he realizes that he has nothing to continue his statement by. He flounders. “Better than any alternative.”

Enjolras looks at him queerly. “I suppose. Are you well?”

What Grantaire  _ is  _ is acutely aware of the fact that his naked cock is nestled quite comfortably against Enjolras’s thigh, separated from skin only by grace of the thin cotton of Enjolras’s nightshirt. “I am fine.”

Enjolras still has not moved from where he rests atop Grantaire’s chest, though he has propped himself up on his elbows somewhat. Grantaire can’t help but wonder as to how long he is to be permitted this indulgence, how long before Enjolras moves away and requests that he leave. 

Grantaire can feel Enjolras’s gaze on him, sharp and undecipherable, even when he drops his own to the desk in the corner. 

“I enjoyed last night,” Enjolras says, after a long cut of silence. Grantaire takes the time to choke on his own saliva and flush to what he assumes is a very vibrant shade of pink. “Very much so, in fact.”

Grantaire cannot help but think back to-

To Enjolras pressed against him; to the feeling of his hands on his sides; to a hand on his cock; to kissing Enjolras wet, sloppy, deeply; to falling to his knees and getting his mouth on Enjolras’s cock; to being beckoned into bed.

Christ.

Grantaire gulps for air, wills his cock to stay… well, perhaps it’s too late to will it to remain soft, but he wills it to remain… respectable. He nearly succeeds. “They say Chopin is one of the great pianists of our time.”

“I do not speak of Chopin,” Enjolras says--he nearly snaps it. He sits up, shifts to sit beside Grantaire, and it’s all so sudden that Grantaire is left gaping, yet again. 

“I-”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, and then his voice softens. “Have you anything to do today?”

Evidently, this is it, then--Enjolras means to shunt him out the door. Grantaire clears his throat, pushes himself up on his elbows. “Only the usual,” he says, then continues, because if he is to be removed from these fine chambers, he will make a scramble for his dignity on the way. “Which is to say, absolutely nothing of merit for every hour of the day.”

Enjolras’s face drops. Grantaire hadn’t truly been aware of how close Enjolras had been sitting, but he shifts, and all of a sudden, he’s just a few centimeters too far away. “I see.” 

“Were you expecting another answer?” It’s an honest question. Grantaire can’t quite see how he is meant to proceed from here--perhaps he is meant to arrange another dinner? Or perhaps Enjolras is done with such affairs now that they’ve bedded one another, and perhaps now Grantaire will simply have to be satisfied with late-night fumbles and fucks, damned to never again see Enjolras by golden sunlight but in passing. 

“I suppose not.” Enjolras still sounds disappointed--which Granatire isn’t quite used to, anymore; it’s been a while. 

Grantaire can’t quite identify why he feels a little disappointed by it all, too. “Oh.”

“I-” Enjolras blurts, nearly too loud. Grantaire watches him swallow. “Do-”

“Do you mean to have me leave?” The words have escaped Grantaire’s throat, rough on the way but uncomfortably tentative in the air, before he can think to stop himself. Because obviously, Enjolras means to have him leave, why on Earth would he make him say it instead of taking the polite course of action and simply slipping out the door with a courteous excuse?

Enjolras does not respond, at first. He stays silent, there on the bed, watching Grantaire with sad eyes and a furrow to his brow. And Grantaire can only bear that particular heartache for so long, so he shifts to reach for his shirt, where he’d abandoned it on the floor the night before, and it’s then that he’s stopped, frozen, by Enjolras’s hand on his bare shoulder.

“Enj?”

“Do you-” He doesn’t continue. 

“I do many things, I fear you’ll have to-”

“Do you not understand, Grantaire?” Enjolras has not yet dropped his hand. Grantaire feels that he is gaping, staring. 

“Understand-”

Enjolras kisses him, soft and quick, right on the corner of his mouth. “Do you understand?” he asks again, and it’s desperate, almost. His hand is clenching tighter than Grantaire would qualify as comfortable in any other setting, but Grantaire can hardly think about things like his shoulder and the rest of the world with Enjolras staring him down.

“Do I-”

“I fear that you will drive me mad.” Enjolras takes a breath, releases his hold. (Grantaire hopes his shoulder will bruise.) “Do you understand that I do not want you to leave?”

Grantaire still feels frozen--like a little toad in the wintertime, shuffled out from under its refuse but not yet warm enough to move. “I thought-” he finally manages. It’s a wonder he chokes out that much at all.

“For all you speak of me being an enigma,” there is a tinge of frustration in Enjolras’s words, and it both smarts and seems a little unnatural in contrast to the flush of pink rising in his face. “I often find that it is you who is the more undecipherable between us. Is this not what you intended? I thought- I thought, last night, I was under the impression that you-” He takes a breath. “Pray tell, Grantaire, what do you  _ want?” _

He makes himself breathe in, then out. “Well,” he says, and he’s joking, though he’s fairly certain that his tone is more pained than anything else. “You know me. Very foolish of you to trust the judgement and desires of a selfish layabout. Better to do the opposite and assume that it will be the better off for everyone.” His throat feels… taught, almost, and he bites hard on the inside of his lip and wills himself not to cry.

“You frustrate me,” Enjolras mutters, just loud enough, and in the time he takes to scrape his hair back from his face, Grantaire scrubs a hand across his cheek in preemption. “Do you not wish to court me? Is that the issue you hold? Do you feel as though I have somehow forced you into this?”

It’s as though the world has come to a halt. Grantaire cannot think, cannot speak, cannot breathe. He knows, distantly, that Enjolras is still speaking--he should be listening, he thinks, only he cannot, because all that he has ringing in his empty head is Enjolras implying, somehow, that Grantaire had been  _ courting  _ him. Or, rather, Grantaire is not surprised by the fact that he had been courting Enjolras--it’s the acknowledgement, the acceptance, on Enjolras’s part that is making his head spin. Grantaire would have been content to watch Enjolras helplessly from across a dinner table for the rest of his days. He would be quite satisfied with nothing but the opportunity to walk Enjolras home in the evenings. He never anticipated anything more.

(Then again, he never anticipated Enjolras kissing him, holding him tight, weaving fingers in his hair and permitting him to sleep beside him in his own bed.)

But Enjolras-

He-

“Court you?” Grantaire’s voice is shredded, wrecked. He can hear little but the rushing of blood in his ears. 

Enjolras, curiously, puts his head in his hands. “Courfeyrac told me I was being foolish.”

“You would have me court you?”

He does not look back up. “You needn’t make a fuss of it. It’s only an idea.” His voice sounds odd, as well.

“I-” Grantaire swallows. “Me? Truly?”

Enjolras does look up, then. “Well, yes. I assumed that you-”

“But-” Grantaire takes a moment to scrounge together his words into a haphazard phrase. “You would have me?”

Enjolras seems to pause, consider that. (Grantaire nearly curses himself--perhaps he shouldn’t have provoked the reflection, perhaps Enjolras will realize that he has erred.) “Grantaire,” he says, and his voice is hopelessly low, soft, gentle.

Grantaire cannot speak to respond.

Enjolras reaches out a hand, lets it settle on the curve of Grantaire’s jaw. “Grantaire,” he says, once more.

Grantaire shuts his eyes tight and lets his head fall to rest against Enjolras’s shoulder. He smells of laundry soap and clean skin and something a little more natural underneath, and Grantaire breathes in deep, because he must.

He hears, from within Enjolras’s chest, a small noise--almost one of shock, and then, a few moments later, he feels Enjolras’s other hand, the one not still soft against his face, his neck, come to rest on his scalp, feels the fingers weave in among his curls. 

“You would have me?” Grantaire asks again, voice trembling, even in his own ears. 

“I would,” Enjolras says. “I assumed that it was you who had doubts.”

He shakes his head against the soft fabric of the nightshirt. “Haven’t you been listening?” He can’t quite say if he’s crying or not, but his eyes are stinging. “You may well be the only thing in which I have no doubts at all. You ought to feel proud.”

He might be imagining things in that worn-ragged mind of his, but he’s fairly certain that Enjolras holds him a little tighter. 

Grantaire cannot truly say how long the two of them stay as such--silent, together, so--only that they shift, after a long while, to be the both of them lying down once more. Enjolras rests his head on Grantaire’s shoulder, his arms about him. Grantaire cannot stop twining Enjolras’s curls about his fingers. 

“Have you truly nothing to do today?” Enjolras asks, and it’s the first that either of them has spoken in some time.

Grantaire tenses. “I do not know what response you desire,” he admits. “Do you mean to enlist me in your revolutionary actions? Ought I have a commitment for the sake of my moral character?”

Enjolras huffs. “I only meant-” he stops, sighs, shifts a bit against Grantaire. “It’s foolish. I was hoping you might propose something. If you’ve the time, that is. Myself, I am available, and I only thought-”

“You meant for me to take you out today.”

“It’s foolish.”

Grantaire is the fool, truly. “Perhaps-” he wracks his brain for some sort of outing, (some sort of outing worthy of  _ courtship, _ his mind chants, quite unhelpfully,) and comes up largely fruitless, mostly due to the fact that he can see the flush rising on Enjolras’s cheeks. “Perhaps we could go for coffee,” he finally suggests. “You mentioned the de Balzac you wanted to discuss, perhaps…” he fades off.

Enjolras bites back a smile. “I could be amenable,” he says. 

“Must I bring a chaperone?” Grantaire asks--teasing, despite himself. “Or do you think that my virtue will be safe without Bahorel’s presence?”

“You had better not,” Enjolras grumbles. He, to Grantaire’s shock, nudges his thigh against Grantaire’s soft cock. “I believe your virtue is somewhat too tattered to merit an intrusion on our privacy.”

Grantaire chokes back a laugh. (God, but he loves him, this ridiculous man.) “The gall you have. And after I have only just accepted your suit.”

“You are insufferable.” Enjolras shifts closer, tightens his hold. Their legs tangle together, bare, where Enjolras’s nightshirt has ridden up. “Do you think…” he does not continue.

“Think…” Grantaire prods.

“Might we stay abed a while?” he asks, words muffled in Grantaire’s chest. “Before we go for coffee, that is?”

Grantaire thinks on that for a while (a few seconds, really.) “I suppose we might as well,” he says, and he waits before continuing. “Although I am putting my virtue at risk, in doing so, which-”

Enjolras elbows him in the ribs. Grantaire takes the opportunity to press a kiss to Enjolras’s lips.

“Go to sleep, then,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras does. 

**Author's Note:**

> please do not mock enjolras for being fundamentally unable to ask grantaire on dates he took him to the salon and it used up all of his common sense juice
> 
> one day i will not let myself be bullied into writing epilogues for all my fics.  
> in the meantime u should all comment so that i feel joyful and glad at heart and in mind.


End file.
